From a young age I can remember being curious about the people I saw in pictures meditating and more specifically about meditation practice itself. I’m not sure where this curiosity sprouted from, maybe it was all the incense and Latin mystery I was exposed to growing up in the Catholic church or maybe it was …

craig daniels's insight:

Meditation may seem mysterious but in reality it is just a simple practice that requires doing it over and over not unlike training for a marathon or learning to draw well.

ANINEWS Meditation May Help Slow Progression Of Alzheimer's Disease RedOrbit The biological changes and stress-level reduction caused by meditation could help slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease or other age-related neurodegenerative...

Like highly sophisticated spacecraft traveling at light speed through a very hectic universe, our minds are on autopilot most of the time.

"The first reason that mindfulness seems damn near impossible is because we cannot instruct the mind what not to think."

craig daniels's insight:

Someone tells you to not think of something and what do you do? You think of that exact thing, right?

When we take a moment to look at what's happening in our minds most of the time we'll see a wildly out of control fragmented jumble that makes little sense.

In Why Mindfulness Seems Damn Near Impossible, Ira Israel uses humor to help us see why the practice of mindfulness can seem impossible. But at the end of the post he throws open the door and let's us know that indeed mindfulness is possible.

Sixteen years ago, I went on my first mindfulness retreat with Shinzen Young. My life was at a low point. I was in an unhappy relationship, struggling with chronic anxiety and depression and my

craig daniels's insight:

The author shares with us that it was 16 years ago she was introduced to mindfulness, it was also 16 years ago I attended my first mindfulness class. For me it was 2 hours a week for 10 weeks. I had meditated for many years off and on prior to the class but it was the class that opened a window

Mindfulness is being taught and practiced in a growing number of organizations worldwide in the effort to improve personal and professional effectiveness and overall organizational productivity.

"Some of these qualities can be referred to as "states of being." Consider, for example, the states of being relaxed, alert, curious, close minded, open minded, negative, positive, or self-confident. These states of being are attained by having experiences and by discussing the experiences of others who have attained them."

craig daniels's insight:

Little by little businesses and schools are swinging over to the mindfulness side of the equation and seeing the benefits in all areas of their organizations.

Mindfulness is not just about stress reduction, though it certainly has a huge role in helping people move into a more relaxed way of life. Mindfulness help users focus and get more done in all aspects of their work and home lives, it certainly has been shown to be one of the most cost effective offerings a company or school can offer.

Learn to meditate in a moment with this hugely popular animated video, based on Martin Boroson's book, One-Moment Meditation. Reduce stress, improve focus an...

craig daniels's insight:

What if someone gave you a gift that made you feel more relaxed, more alert and gave you more energy. Now suppose this gift also made your food taste better, helped you to sleep deeper and made your significant other want to kiss you more...:)

Meditation even just for a moment is such a gift and here's the really neat thing, it's a gift you can give yourself many times a day without having to give up anything... How does that sound? Don't you want it right now?

The above video shows us how in just a minute a path to relaxation and abundance. Now if you don't want to watch it right now, that's ok. The video by Martin Boroson will be here when the mood to watch it strikes you.

It’s getting difficult not to bump into the word mindfulness these days. While mindfulness is mostly associated with meditation, I like to think of it as a way of being in the world. Mindfulness ...

"While it may be easy to communicate with kindness and respect to those we care about, how far does that regard extend to those who try our patience? How considerate are we with people we’ll never meet again? How gracious are we when pressures mount? How mindful do we believe we should be with people we don’t like?"

craig daniels's insight:

Our minds sure can become cluttered with thoughts, our emotions at times seems to run wild and sometimes our intuition just seems hidden. What are we to do?

Mindfulness practice is a bit like a windshield wiper on your car, when practiced on a regular basis what we see, feel and think become a bit clearer and we won't bump into as many people along the way.

"Part of what we know about neuroscience explains why formal brainstorming fails. The brain can’t make the necessary connections needed for brilliant insight in a rigid environment. There’s too much pressure and too much influence. People instinctively mimic others’ opinions, leading to suggestions and thoughts that are often predictable and stale."

"Google allows employees to spend up to 20 percent of their time working on personal projects as part of its Innovation Time Off initiate. According to Marissa Mayer, former vice president of search products and user experience (now Yahoo CEO), half of all new product launches at the company—Gmail and Google News, for example—have come from the program."

craig daniels's insight:

All of us are thinking up ideas 24/7 and many of the ideas that pass through our minds may be just what we are looking for but don' t know it. The key seems to be letting people have time to think while they are at work.

It may seem counter productive to give employees time during the work day to do their own thing but studies show it can improve productivity and help create new and exciting ways to solving problems. Ask yourself what does 3M and Google know about innovation that we don't?

I've run across a few small businesses that have mediation rooms for the employees. The rooms are available for use during the work day and you can practice mindfulness while getting paid. Everyone I've talked to about this tell me it pays off for both employer and employees.

As we continue our journey in mindfulness, we were asked last week to let our hands rest. This practice resounded with several of you, especially those of you who use your hands every day as part of your job.

Often life can seem like a series of hooks, everywhere you turn something is tugging you in one direction or another. People want you to believe them, trust them and follow their lead.

I think we want to say no just to help us feel grounded and in control. A mindfulness practice helps us to be aware of our unconsciousness desire to be grounded and by being aware we can make a decision based on reality, not on fear or insecurity.

"It’s no secret what mindfulness meditation can do to fight anxiety, but some folks can’t tame their mind for all the oms in the world – or so they think..."

A mediation practice is a cumulative exercise and you'll find you get better at it the more you do it. You don't need to worry about some esoteric concepts as you ease into your practice, just sit in a comfortable position for fifteen or twenty minutes and breathe.

Tomorrow and next weeks meditative sessions will take care of them selves, you only need to sit and breathe today.

Here's the thing: Meditation is for everyone, and it's different for everyone. There is no right or wrong way of doing it, and meditation can help you increase your focus, reduce stress, and prevent common health ailments.

Living mindfully, living consciously—having a beacon such as love, peace or ease guide our every decision and action, rather than allowing ego to run on autopilot and make decisions from a fear-based, scarcity mentality—is how we apply...

Personal HealthIs Mindfulness the Latest Fad? Are the Benefits Too Good to Be True? Would you be skeptical if I told you that without taking a pill or seeing a therapist, you could lower your bloo...

"Dogs are great practitioners of mindfulness, according to Jonathan Kaplan, PhD"

"Besides being nonjudgmental (dogs think their owners are great no matter what kind of bad hair day they are having), dogs live only in the present moment"

craig daniels's insight:

There are teachers all around us that can help us get a handle on living a mindful life. In this post from AARP Carole Carson shares with us a number of ways to bring mindfulness into our life and reduce stress and tension in our lives.

Carson suggests we spend some time watching a dog go through its day and we'll see how they live in the moment. If you don't have a pet you can pick up a number of books like Full Catastrophe Living.

Learning mindfulness is probably much simpler than you think, in fact you already know how to be mindful you just need to be reminded.... Watch your neighbor's cat.

If asked to explain the value of mindfulness, you may want to consider the following question: Can you sit for one minute and completely quiet your mind? Can you do this without feeling like you're coming out of your skin?

craig daniels's insight:

The benefits of mindfulness seem to grow the more your practice it. It's kind of like a perpetual motion machine that just keeps going and going.

You will never find one true definition because the experience varies by culture and personal experience. Virtually all cultures around the globe have some version of what we collectively refer to as mindfulness. It could involve Eastern traditions of meditation, Western traditions of prayer, or completely secular experiences of simply living in the present moment."

craig daniels's insight:

Brad Waters shares with us a simple road map for understanding the practice of mindfulness, how it differs depending on the context of culture you put it in and why it is way simpler than some would have you believe.

Above all mindfulness is a practice built on non-striving or no goals. Sure you get better at it the more you integrate mindfulness into your daily life and routines but there is no place to get to because we are already there.

Schools for the most part haven't taught us to recognize the wonderful truth that being in the present moment is mindfulness. If your mindfulness practice is causing you stress it's probably because you are trying to get somewhere when you are already there.

Mindfulness has a way of sounding complicated. It’s anything but. “Mindfulness is paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present

"“Mindfulness is paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally,” according to Marsha Lucas, Ph.D, psychologist and author of Rewire Your Brain for Love."

craig daniels's insight:

I recently watch a 3 minute video produced by the good folks at TED. The video featured a woman who had found out she had a brain tumor. Her talk was about all the wonderful things that had happened to her because of that tumor or as she called it her gift.

The TED video was quite moving and jam-packed with insight and emotion. What was the big thing I took away from her talk? I took away that mindfulness is one of the most powerful practices that we can ever hope to utilize in our lives.

Paying attention gives lets us see so much more of our lives and the lives of those we love, Mindfulness opens up a reality that we mostly miss out on because of the life of distraction so many of us lead.

Come home to your life, practice mindfulness.And check out the rest of this post.

From the Himalayas to US Neuroscience labs, two filmmakers explore the effects of meditation and its potential for collective evolution

"Scientific discoveries are proving that meditation can be beneficial to individual and collective happiness, but what does this mean outside an Eastern Buddhist culture? In contemporary American life, the term "mindfulness" has become a buzzword across a huge range of disciplines, from psychology and medicine to education, social action, and prison reform. This film asks: What does mindfulness mean, how does it relate to human happiness, and what does it mean to practice mindfulness in today's society? "

craig daniels's insight:

Mindfulness-Meditation is one key to getting a handle on who we are, who we are inside ourselves. Once we start exploring just who we are, many of us are surprised by what we find.

Throughout recorded history people have been using meditation as a tool to dig deep into our consciousness, dig deep into our souls. We wonder just who is this person I call self?

Well now here in the 21st century more and more people are wondering just what are people finding on their journey deep within their minds and they are writing books and making films about what they have found.

Here is a film project that is worthy of your support and I hope you will take a moment to watch and read their message on Kickstarter. The Project and film is called Naked Mind...

Learning to Meditate is a Hero's Journey of the Mind

Sometimes it can be difficult to learn how to meditate from an enlightened guru, or at least it was for me when I was a beginner. I would read their words over and over, trying to understand what they were talking about -- but it was as though they were writing in a foreign language, one I had yet to learn.

I wrote about my own quest to become a meditator many years ago, and these writings evolved into the book Choosing to Be: Lessons in Living from a Feline Zen Master, in which I describe the ups and downs of my struggle. My Maine Coon cat Poohbear Degoonacoon became the Feline Zen Master, and Catzenbear arrived as his kitten muse. Together we traveled a hero's journey, like that of Don Quixote or Ulysses, except that most of the action happened within my own mind. (Come to think of it, much of their action happened in their minds too.)

You can enjoy our often humorous quest on Amazon Kindle or B&N Nook. Who knows, perhaps you might even learn a thing or ten (as one of our generous reviewers wrote on Amazon).

"Choosing to Be is a short, original, comfortingly readable introduction to the Buddhist path, a way of living that places the primary responsibility for our happiness into our own paws, er…hands.” ~John Calabrese, Creations Magazine

"A quiet revolution is happening in America." So says Tim Ryan, Ohio congressman and author of A Mindful Nation, which documents the spread of mindfulness meditation across the US, and argues for its widespread adoption as a way to favorably affect the country's healthcare system, economy, schools and military."

At first I wondered if there was a conflict with mindfulness practice and business or politics and then i remembered Katagiri Roshi's wish of everyone practicing meditation during their busy day and my doubts vanished.

Mindfulness is nothing other then seeing reality as it is and not as we want it to be. This a good and thoughtful article with lots of comments at the end.

Thinking about why we practice mindfulness or what is the ground underneath our practice of mediation may be something we rarely thinking about. This article points to a very powerful word "intention." What is our intention, why are we embarking upon this road of mindfulness?

"the underpinnings of mindfulness are described as intention, attention, and attitude. Other writers, both from mindfulness and Buddhist Psychology, emphasize the need for creating an intention which directs the attention to cultivate a particular attitude to our experience."

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